Archives

Categories

Meta

Category: Hugo Chavez

Referring to the alleged influence of the powerful Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy, Stone said that Israel had distorted “United States foreign policy for years,” adding he felt U.S. policy toward Iran was “horrible.”

“Iran isn’t necessarily the good guy,” Stone said, insisting that Americans did not “know the full story.”

Stone’s comments to the Sunday times echo pervious remarks by the Hollywood director, regarding what he conceives as the distorted view of figures such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin in U.S. media.

Earlier this year, Stone, speaking at the at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena said that “Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and it’s been used cheaply.”

The Board of the World Association of Newspapers has strongly condemned the repression of freedom of speech and the press in Venezuela, and has called on President Hugo Chávez to stop proposed legislation and other measures aimed at silencing the independent press.

“The government “has once again threatened to apply military measures and repression against the media and to enact new and pending legislation limiting freedom of the press,” said the WAN Board in a resolution which was passed on the eve of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum, which brought more than 1,000 newspaper executives to Istanbul, Turkey, for the global meetings of the world’s press.

In cracking down on the opposition press, Venezuela has recently created a government-controlled committee to regulate the content of news broadcasting and has reopened discussions that would criminalize libel statutes. Recently, the majority of pro-government members of Congress have approved a petition that asks the Attorney General to annul the nationality of several Venezuelan journalists, media owners and other opposition personalities.”

Share this:

Like this:

Sean Penn can be such an insufferable dipshit. Last Friday, appearing in the echo chamber with Bill Maher, Penn suggested prison time for reporters who tell the truth about Venezuelan DICTATOR Hugo Chavez.

“[E]very day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

Regarding Chavez’s critics, Stone says, “Why do you seek out the dark side when the guy is doing good things?” Such as his embrace of Ahmadinejad, or this:

“What we are witnessing is the most comprehensive assault on free speech in Venezuela since Chávez came to power,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “With the exception of Cuba, Venezuela is the only country in the region that shows such flagrant disregard for universal standards of freedom of expression.”

But why would an artist like Stone care about something as trite as freedom of expression?

Like this:

He’s consolidating power and silencing dissent, just as you’d expect from a Marxist thug. “Freedom of expression must be limited,” Chavez’s attorney general said while lobbying for new restrictions on Venezuela’s news media.

Former Honduras President Manuel Zelaya attempted a similar power grab before being removed from office. Even his own party opposed Zelaya’s bid to eliminate presidential term limits.

To put this all in an American perspective, swap out Honduras for the United States, and insert President Bush’s name in place of President Zelaya’s in all the above paragraphs. The world has witnessed these kind of extra-Constitutional power grabs by everyone from Adolf Hitler to Ferdinand Marcos to Hugo Chavez. The law of the land in Honduras was followed to the letter by everyone but Zelaya.

“I give you a replica of liberator Simón BolÍvar’s sword . . . For you who, like BolÍvar, are and will always be a true freedom fighter [who] continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists.”

In the more than twenty years that Human Rights Watch has worked in Latin America, no government has ever expelled our representatives for our work, not even the right-wing dictatorships guilty of far more egregious abuses than those committed by Chávez.

Share this:

Like this:

Venezuelans have opted for authoritarian rule, with 54 percent voting for a referendum that eliminates term limits.

Now it’s official: Hugo Chavez is the new Castro.

The latest State Department human rights report cites the following government infringements in just the past few years: “unlawful killings; disappearances reportedly involving security forces; torture and abuse of detainees; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detentions; a corrupt, inefficient, and politicized judicial system characterized by trial delays, impunity, and violations of due process; searches without warrants of private homes; official intimidation and attacks on the independent media; government-promoted anti-Semitism; widespread corruption at all levels of government; violence against women; trafficking in persons; and restrictions on workers’ right of association.”

Sean Penn must be thrilled. More on the increasingly churlish twit forthcoming.

Like this:

James Kirchick reveals the conflict between Sean Penn’s portrayal of “Milk” and his associations with anti-gay dictators.

“There isn’t a single individual that is taken seriously in the human rights community — whether you’re talking about Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, or Freedom House — that would describe the Castro brothers and their regime as anything other than a police state run by thugs and murderers,” says Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, which focuses on Latin America. “That Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator that put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling.”

The supermodel must be crushed to hear that wannabe-dictator Hugo Chavez‘s bid to become the next Castro was rejected by Venezuelan voters.

The so-called reform package would have established new types of communal property, let Chavez handpick local leaders under a redrawn political map and suspended civil liberties during extended states of emergency. Chavez could’ve also stayed in power indefinitely.

Instead, he’ll be out of office in 2012, good news for those who embrace human rights and freedom of the press.

Meanwhile, Danny Glover is demanding a recount.

Share this:

Like this:

Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced President Hugo Chavez‘s attempts to expand his power. At least eight people were injured, including one by gunfire, officials said.

Photographers for The Associated Press saw at least two gunmen—one wearing a ski mask and another covering his face with a T-shirt—firing handguns at the anti-Chavez crowd. Terrified students ran through the campus as ambulances arrived.

Won’t matter to Penn, as long as Hugo maintains his rhetorical battle with the U.S. Funny how someone who takes himself so seriously can be so seriously misguided. (BTW, Sean, you’re not a journalist. Propagandist, maybe.)